Greetings from Qianxi!
On Thursday, it took one plane, one bus and three cab rides by myself from Beijing to Qianxi, but I made it! I am so proud because I HAD to use Mandarin to get around and I actually did it. I don’t know how, but I did. My only goof was that I was at the wrong bus station in Guiyang, the capitol city, but someone helped get me to the right station. I bought my ticket by myself, somehow found the bus and settled into a zebra print covered seat at the back of the very full bus. Shortly after take off, my seat mates all fell asleep – on me. It was very cozy indeed. J When I pulled up to the hospital (that I didn’t even know the name of!) every clapped and cheered! To get to the hospital, I was surrounded by about 30 people trying to communicate to the cab driver where I needed to go. I finally made the international sign of stitching a cleft lip and palate and everyone started nodding and going “Ah ah ah!” The light bulb turned on and the proud cab driver knew exactly where to take the crazy American lady wandering in the bowels of Qianxi. He did not want to charge me for the ride! Of course, I just had to pay him and gave him 50 yuan. I think I made his day. Food in this area is either wickedly spicy, or bland. I am living on a high carb diet of noodles and bread. I could really use some fruit and thing I will hit a street market for an orange I can peel today. I have drank so much bottled water, that I have had to suffer and straddle the “through” with water flowing, which is our hospital restroom. Everyday, they burn deodorizer in the room that smells like pot (not that I would know what that smells like. It’s just what others have told me.) Our hotel is another story. Everyone has something funny or gross about their room to tell. My room mate Carey and I have a leaky bathtub. Every night we stand in about a half inch of slow draining water. We each bought a pair of $1.00 plastic butterfly sandals to wear. One of the doctors stepped into his fiberglass bathtub and broke the tub in half! Ha! Many people have complained of moldy walls, spiders and cockroaches. I feel very lucky to have a decent and comfortable room to go back to! Our hotel is at the base of a hill with an ancient stone temple at the top. At about 6:00AM every morning, we wake up to gongs, the national anthem and someone screaming and chanting. It is quite strange. At night, the karaoke bar livens up and the music is so loud it sound like they are in our room. Carey and I have taken to wearing our airplane ear plugs to bed! Ha! Last night, I went to sleep singing “All Out of Love” by Airsupply with a Chinese accent. Yesterday, we did surgery on 48 patients, including two burn skin grafts. This was my first experience with this procedure and it was extremely interesting. The students have done a phenomenal job with their presentations. Smoking is prevalent in China; therefore, the students have been giving “smoking information” presentations to groups of people. They allow smoking inside the hospital, so there are many, many people to present to! Internet and phone access is next to impossible in this area of China. It is mountainous and extremely rural, so bear with me! This is a large Chinese minority area and I have met Yi (dancing people), Bai (white people), Hanjiu (sweet people) and Miao (mountain people.) They are easy to identify by their unique native costuming. Apparently there are several minority groups in Guizhou. I wish I had time to go out into the rural communities and see how they live. It would be extremely fascinating! One of my favorite things are the unique baby carriers. Some are velvet and intricately embroidered. Some are cross stitched with bright patterns and others are fashioned out of bamboo and worn like a back pack. On Monday, we will go to Qianxi High School #1 in the morning to give presentations about Operation Smile and our student presentations to groups of students. I learned that all of the schools we will visit have over 2,000 students each! In the afternoon, we will visit the local Social Welfare Institute (orphanage) and educate and play with the children. I plan to purchase yogurt drinks and little snack cake for each child as our gift. While I am there, I will also meet with the Vice Director to explain what Operation Smile does and educate the staff about our new Cleft Healing Center in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Operation Smile – China pays for travel and surgery for the patients and family. As a matter of fact, we have held back 20 Qianxi patients and will send them to the center in Hangzhou to start getting the word out to the community. On Tuesday, we will go to Middle School and High School #2. Also each with over 2,000 students! We will go into the English classes and hear a lesson, and then we will do our presentations. Afterwards, the students are looking forward to practicing their English with us (and I will practice my Mandarin in return!) Last night, I met the English teacher and eight high school students. We talked for two hours and they wanted to give me an official Chinese name. They debated and argued about what to name me. One boy wanted to name me after a traditional Chinese poem, a girl wanted to give me a name with symbolism to Operation Smile’s work in China. They came up with Xie Mei. It has two meanings: 1) Thank you America for helping our children, and 2) Beautiful person. How cool to be given my own Chinese name by the students. I feel very honored. The children are beautiful! There was one little boy wearing a bright yellow knit suit with split bottom pants. He mother was walking him through the courtyard with a harness and I knelt down to take pictures of him. In a split second, he gave me a huge smile and then let loose a powerful stream of pee right up and on to my shoe! Thank goodness they are closed toe and have been on many missions. They had to disinfect my shoe with Germ-X. Ha Ha! I met a family yesterday. The parents are very new wave looking and are only 18 years old. The baby had her cleft lip surgery yesterday and the mother will have her lip surgery today. That is so cool! The father was amazing. The love for his little baby daughter was palpable. You could just see it and feel it throughout the ward. Many elderly grandmothers have brought the babies and they are so tiny themselves. They are beautiful and so thankful for our help. Many have tears in their eyes. The hospital of course does not compare to U.S. hospitals, but it is rather nice and the post-operative rooms have beds and are very comfortable. This is a smooth running mission. In addition to working with the students, I have been helping out with the medical records team and am planning on training on becoming part of the medical records team on future missions. I look forward to having another role I can do with Operation Smile. It is now the Azalea Festival and on Tuesday we are going to a famous mountain covered in bright azaleas. Beautiful! On Wednesday, we head back to Beijing and will enjoy some sightseeing in Beijing at the Great wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden Palace and the Silk Market. Believe it or not, in all my trips all over China, I have never seen the wall! I really look forward to standing on it in my Operation Smile Team China t-shirt with our entire team of 47 people! I think this is the last trip for my Fuji S5100 camera. The battery compartment broke and I have resorted to tape and rubber bands to hold it together. Very classy! I can’t properly explain what it is really like to go on a mission. It is really hard, the conditions are difficult, but it is so amazing and fulfilling. It renews my faith in people and our world and I absolutely love it. On Sunday, I walked across the bridge to buy bottled water and other necessities (toilet paper) and ran into a street market. It was filled with minority people and I observed many things I have never seen before in China. A elderly man was smoking a twisty shaped water pipe and an old woman was fanning incense over what appeared to be tarot cards. I bought the most wonderful piece of sponge cake with orange glaze and coconut, hit a few shops then snuck my way back into the hospital. It’s a lot of fun to explore!
On Thursday, it took one plane, one bus and three cab rides by myself from Beijing to Qianxi, but I made it! I am so proud because I HAD to use Mandarin to get around and I actually did it. I don’t know how, but I did. My only goof was that I was at the wrong bus station in Guiyang, the capitol city, but someone helped get me to the right station. I bought my ticket by myself, somehow found the bus and settled into a zebra print covered seat at the back of the very full bus. Shortly after take off, my seat mates all fell asleep – on me. It was very cozy indeed. J When I pulled up to the hospital (that I didn’t even know the name of!) every clapped and cheered! To get to the hospital, I was surrounded by about 30 people trying to communicate to the cab driver where I needed to go. I finally made the international sign of stitching a cleft lip and palate and everyone started nodding and going “Ah ah ah!” The light bulb turned on and the proud cab driver knew exactly where to take the crazy American lady wandering in the bowels of Qianxi. He did not want to charge me for the ride! Of course, I just had to pay him and gave him 50 yuan. I think I made his day. Food in this area is either wickedly spicy, or bland. I am living on a high carb diet of noodles and bread. I could really use some fruit and thing I will hit a street market for an orange I can peel today. I have drank so much bottled water, that I have had to suffer and straddle the “through” with water flowing, which is our hospital restroom. Everyday, they burn deodorizer in the room that smells like pot (not that I would know what that smells like. It’s just what others have told me.) Our hotel is another story. Everyone has something funny or gross about their room to tell. My room mate Carey and I have a leaky bathtub. Every night we stand in about a half inch of slow draining water. We each bought a pair of $1.00 plastic butterfly sandals to wear. One of the doctors stepped into his fiberglass bathtub and broke the tub in half! Ha! Many people have complained of moldy walls, spiders and cockroaches. I feel very lucky to have a decent and comfortable room to go back to! Our hotel is at the base of a hill with an ancient stone temple at the top. At about 6:00AM every morning, we wake up to gongs, the national anthem and someone screaming and chanting. It is quite strange. At night, the karaoke bar livens up and the music is so loud it sound like they are in our room. Carey and I have taken to wearing our airplane ear plugs to bed! Ha! Last night, I went to sleep singing “All Out of Love” by Airsupply with a Chinese accent. Yesterday, we did surgery on 48 patients, including two burn skin grafts. This was my first experience with this procedure and it was extremely interesting. The students have done a phenomenal job with their presentations. Smoking is prevalent in China; therefore, the students have been giving “smoking information” presentations to groups of people. They allow smoking inside the hospital, so there are many, many people to present to! Internet and phone access is next to impossible in this area of China. It is mountainous and extremely rural, so bear with me! This is a large Chinese minority area and I have met Yi (dancing people), Bai (white people), Hanjiu (sweet people) and Miao (mountain people.) They are easy to identify by their unique native costuming. Apparently there are several minority groups in Guizhou. I wish I had time to go out into the rural communities and see how they live. It would be extremely fascinating! One of my favorite things are the unique baby carriers. Some are velvet and intricately embroidered. Some are cross stitched with bright patterns and others are fashioned out of bamboo and worn like a back pack. On Monday, we will go to Qianxi High School #1 in the morning to give presentations about Operation Smile and our student presentations to groups of students. I learned that all of the schools we will visit have over 2,000 students each! In the afternoon, we will visit the local Social Welfare Institute (orphanage) and educate and play with the children. I plan to purchase yogurt drinks and little snack cake for each child as our gift. While I am there, I will also meet with the Vice Director to explain what Operation Smile does and educate the staff about our new Cleft Healing Center in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Operation Smile – China pays for travel and surgery for the patients and family. As a matter of fact, we have held back 20 Qianxi patients and will send them to the center in Hangzhou to start getting the word out to the community. On Tuesday, we will go to Middle School and High School #2. Also each with over 2,000 students! We will go into the English classes and hear a lesson, and then we will do our presentations. Afterwards, the students are looking forward to practicing their English with us (and I will practice my Mandarin in return!) Last night, I met the English teacher and eight high school students. We talked for two hours and they wanted to give me an official Chinese name. They debated and argued about what to name me. One boy wanted to name me after a traditional Chinese poem, a girl wanted to give me a name with symbolism to Operation Smile’s work in China. They came up with Xie Mei. It has two meanings: 1) Thank you America for helping our children, and 2) Beautiful person. How cool to be given my own Chinese name by the students. I feel very honored. The children are beautiful! There was one little boy wearing a bright yellow knit suit with split bottom pants. He mother was walking him through the courtyard with a harness and I knelt down to take pictures of him. In a split second, he gave me a huge smile and then let loose a powerful stream of pee right up and on to my shoe! Thank goodness they are closed toe and have been on many missions. They had to disinfect my shoe with Germ-X. Ha Ha! I met a family yesterday. The parents are very new wave looking and are only 18 years old. The baby had her cleft lip surgery yesterday and the mother will have her lip surgery today. That is so cool! The father was amazing. The love for his little baby daughter was palpable. You could just see it and feel it throughout the ward. Many elderly grandmothers have brought the babies and they are so tiny themselves. They are beautiful and so thankful for our help. Many have tears in their eyes. The hospital of course does not compare to U.S. hospitals, but it is rather nice and the post-operative rooms have beds and are very comfortable. This is a smooth running mission. In addition to working with the students, I have been helping out with the medical records team and am planning on training on becoming part of the medical records team on future missions. I look forward to having another role I can do with Operation Smile. It is now the Azalea Festival and on Tuesday we are going to a famous mountain covered in bright azaleas. Beautiful! On Wednesday, we head back to Beijing and will enjoy some sightseeing in Beijing at the Great wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden Palace and the Silk Market. Believe it or not, in all my trips all over China, I have never seen the wall! I really look forward to standing on it in my Operation Smile Team China t-shirt with our entire team of 47 people! I think this is the last trip for my Fuji S5100 camera. The battery compartment broke and I have resorted to tape and rubber bands to hold it together. Very classy! I can’t properly explain what it is really like to go on a mission. It is really hard, the conditions are difficult, but it is so amazing and fulfilling. It renews my faith in people and our world and I absolutely love it. On Sunday, I walked across the bridge to buy bottled water and other necessities (toilet paper) and ran into a street market. It was filled with minority people and I observed many things I have never seen before in China. A elderly man was smoking a twisty shaped water pipe and an old woman was fanning incense over what appeared to be tarot cards. I bought the most wonderful piece of sponge cake with orange glaze and coconut, hit a few shops then snuck my way back into the hospital. It’s a lot of fun to explore!
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1 comment:
YOu crack me up. LOL.
I love the little girl in the first photo what a serious face.
Tracie you always by the crowd.
Love Lisa
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